Today was our first University visit. We were invited to visit the Central University of Finance and Economics. When we arrived at the University, we were welcomed by a few students who took us to our first lecture. 

The first lecture was given by a professor from the University. He gave a lecture on the smart phone industry along with information of e-commerce. Smart phones are very popular in China. One reason why they are so popular is the cost. Smart phones are a lot cheaper than computers and are capable of doing all the same things. People in China use their smart phones for everything including using it as a credit card or money. There are two main apps offered in China for the smart phone to act as money, WeChat and Alipay. Between these two apps there are over 1 billion users. The professor also told us some of the differences between the US and China’s traditional market styles. In the US, there are large grocery stores such as Costco and Walmart. When people go to these grocery stores there are very large carts and people buy large amounts of food to last for a week or two. These grocery stores are also located in the suburbs. In contrast, China has grocery stores in the city where it is very busy. When people go to those stores, they use a basket and only get small amounts of food. One reason for the small amounts of food is due to smaller family sizes. Families in China are three or four people while in America it is common for six people to be in a family. Another reason for the location of these stores in China is due to families not having cars to be able to drive far away to places. In addition, e-commerce is very popular in China. They have a similar holiday to Black Friday called Single’s Day. On this day everything online is 50% off. An enormous amount of people order packages on this day. Due to so many orders it can take up to two weeks for the packages to be delivered compared to a few days. 

Next, another professor at the University talked to us about how much of an impact Ancient China is on our day to day lives. A lot of things that we hear about or eat originate from China such as Kiwi or skiing/snowboarding. After this lecture we ate lunch at the University. It was another family style meal with many different dishes we have not eaten yet. All of the food was very unique and tasty. After lunch we went on a tour of the library. 

The library was magnificent. There are five floors with a lot of new technology. One of the major advances is how they can look on the computer to see if there are any seats open and then they can check out one seat for the day. Finally, we went outside and played two games. The first game was jump rope which was just for fun. And the second game we played was competitive. We were broken up into three groups. Each group stood in a circle holding hands. Then we had to move the hula hoop around the circle without letting go of each other’s hands. We all got really competitive during this activity. My group came in second, but we were very close to coming in first. After we finished the games, we made our way back to the bus and headed back to the hotel.